Rick had accepted.
He had made a decision about two teenagers’ lives because someone had given him something he needed.
But the betrayal didn’t end there.
Years later, after learning that my first husband, Daniel, had died, Rick knowingly found me again.
He knew who I was.
He knew about my past.
He knew about William.
And he never told me.
Instead, he built a relationship with me while withholding a truth that could have changed my decision to marry him.
No legal document could have prepared me for what I was hearing.
Not an attorney’s opinion.
Not an insurance policy.
Not a mortgage statement.
Not an investment account.
Not an estate record.
Not even a court file.
This wasn’t a financial secret.
It was something much more personal.
Rick had repeatedly decided what information other people were allowed to know.
First, when we were young.
Then again, decades later.
